Bosco Ntaganda in the ICC: profile of the Terminator

Bosco Ntaganda, the Congolese warlord nicknamed The Terminator, has appeared
for the first time before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a
week after surrendering following years on the run.

When he makes his brief initial appearance at 10am, judges will verify Ntaganda's identity, read the alleged crimes and his rights under the court's founding document, the Rome Statute.

Presiding Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova will then set a date for a hearing to confirm the charges against Ntaganda, who was allegedly involved in the murder of at least 800 people in villages in the volatile DR Congo's Ituri region.

At that next hearing, not expected for several months, prosecutors must convince the court's judges they have enough evidence to take him to trial

The rebel, who turned up at the US embassy in Rwanda last week and turned himself in, was transferred to The Hague where he will face charges ranging from rape and murder to using child soldiers.

The man nicknamed "The Terminator" and once described as someone who "kills people easily" is said to be a key leader of the M23 rebel group, whose fight against government forces has been terrorising residents of DR Congo's mineral-rich and chronically restive east.

According to the Congolese government, Ntaganda fled across the border into neighbouring Rwanda last weekend with hundreds of other rebels fleeing in-fighting within the M23.

Ntaganda, an ex-general in the Congolese military, is accused of having instigated a mutiny by ex-rebels who had been integrated into the regular army in 2009. They defected in April last year, forming the M23.

A UN report in November said the M23's "de facto chain of command" included Ntaganda and culminated with Rwandan Defence Minister James Kabarebe.

Both the UN and Kinshasa have alleged that Rwanda has been pulling the strings in the M23 and even had men on the ground, an accusation denied by Kigali.

But the UN report submitted further evidence against a Ntaganda, who is wanted by the ICC on a grim list of charges including recruiting child soldiers, sex slavery, murder and pillaging.

The ICC issued arrest warrants against Ntaganda in 2006 over crimes committed in the northeastern Ituri region in 2002-2003.

He was again accused of having recruited under age fighters in the province of North Kivu in the M23's 2012 rebellion.

One woman from Birambizo in North Kivu told Human Rights Watch that Ntaganda himself visited her village to recruit.

"He asked us to give our children, our students, to him to fight. He came to our village himself," the woman said.

In the words of a child soldier who testified against Ntaganda in The Hague, he is known as someone who "kills people easily".

Born in 1973 in Rwanda but brought up in DR Congo, the imposing Ntaganda – he is over six feet tall and has a penchant for pencil moustaches and leather cowboy-style hats – has enjoyed a life of fine dining and freedom despite the ICC warrant.

"Ntaganda has boldly walked around the restaurants and tennis courts of Goma flaunting his impunity like a medal of honour while engaging in ruthless human rights abuses," HRW senior Africa researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg said.

Ntaganda is a keen tennis player, and loves jogging and surfing the internet, according to his lawyer Antoine Mahamba Kasiwa.

According to UN investigators, he has managed to amass considerable wealth by running a large extortion empire in North Kivu, manning rogue checkpoints and taxing the area's many mines.

In 1990, in his late teens, he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which was based in Uganda at the time and which put an end to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, under current President Paul Kagame's leadership.

Since then Ntaganda has alternated between fighting in the national army and rebellions, including in the five-year DR Congo war that claimed at least two million lives and ended in 2003.

Ntaganda is accused of several assassinations when he was second-in-command of a government sweep to flush out militias from the eastern region, during his time as a general in the regular army.

The M23 rebellion and other unrest in the troubled central African country has displaced more than 2.2 million Congolese since the start of 2012, according to the UN refugee agency.